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Enhanced Robotics!: Improving Building and Programming Learning Experiences for Students with Visual Impairments

Published:21 February 2018Publication History

ABSTRACT

Making technology and computer science learning experiences accessible to students with disabilities is an important step in preparing them to enter the workforce of the future--one in which many jobs will require skills to solve problems with technology. This paper presents the tool and curricular enhancements developed to make the Exploring Computer Science Robotics unit accessible to students with visual impairments (VI). It describes the evolution of enhancements, based on formative evaluation studies, to increase support as VI students engaged in building and programming LEGO Mindstorms robots. Results describe the ways in which enhancements were iteratively designed in response to student engagement and confidence, as well as their emerging understanding of top-down and bottom-up processes in robotics design and programming.

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      • Published in

        cover image ACM Conferences
        SIGCSE '18: Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
        February 2018
        1174 pages
        ISBN:9781450351034
        DOI:10.1145/3159450

        Copyright © 2018 ACM

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        Publication History

        • Published: 21 February 2018

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        SIGCSE '18 Paper Acceptance Rate161of459submissions,35%Overall Acceptance Rate1,595of4,542submissions,35%

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